🚨 Pakistan coach Bob Veldhof never wanted to go to Pakistan again 🚨
"I experienced in Pakistan that I only received my money right before my flight home, in an envelope. I looked inside and thought: this isn't even a tenth of what I'm supposed to get. We don't have any more, they would say. Two hours later I was on the plane. I could kiss the rest goodbye," Bob told
hockey.nl.
But the very man who had sworn off Pakistan for good has complete confidence in the new chairman, Mohiuddin Ahmad Wani, who, according to him, genuinely wants to break with the past.
"Six weeks ago, he suddenly called me. He had a good story, and I noticed that the government was getting on board seriously as well. I saw documents showing that they really wanted to implement changes. That's when I thought: I'm up for this," he said.
Veldhof soon discovered that the fine words were being turned into deeds remarkably quickly this time. He sent Wani a photo of the video tower in Den Bosch, purely as an example of what he needed at the training complex in Islamabad. "A day later, I walked onto the field. Suddenly, there were two video towers."
In the 'new' Pakistan, nothing seems too crazy. "At our first training session, we only had five balls. Two days later, there were 150 Kookaburra balls from Australia. Things like that are suddenly happening now,' he says with a laugh. 'We have now also ordered a large package with all kinds of software, measuring equipment, and other technology. That costs a few hundred thousand. I never thought in the past that something like that would be paid for just like that."
#Hockey #HWC2026